Just out of curiosity...

[Holden McGroin]

"Matter can not be created or destroyed"

Einstein came up with something that alters the persistence of matter from classical Newtonian physics... E=MC2  destroys matter to create energy.

According to quantum theory, all around us particle and antiparticle pairs are constantly appearing and annihilating each other.  At the event horizon of a black hole, sometimes one particle gets sucked in, while the other, just outside the horizon, can escape causing the black hole to appear to not be black.

The first few moments of the universe is governed by quantum theory rather than general relativity, and the great quest of physics is to meld the two theories into a larger, all encompassing theory.  Quantum theory, which describes the world to extreme precision, says that things can just happen, even the start of a universe, if the bet covers the odds.

When quantum theory governs, all sorts of bizarre stuff happens and as Nobel laureate quantum physicist Richard Feynman noted, “Nobody understands quantum theory.”

A real life explanation of how one can create something from nothing is a loan.  If I have no money, but exchange debt for cash, I still have no money, but now I can spend it.

[GrimCO]

Those of you who are posing the question "If there is a God, where did he come from, and how could he always have existed are being duped by your perspective of time. Being scientifically minded I prefer not to rule out the possibility of there being a "God". I just think of it in terms of the energy source that fueled the Big Bang.

In our normal everyday lives, we observe time ticking by at the same rate constantly. However, there are instances that occur in our Universe every day in which time completely stops or better said doesn't exist. The Theory of Relativity states that as an object or particle approaches the speed of light, it's time "dilates" or slows down. As a particle achieves the speed of light, it's time stops. This is no longer just theory but a proven fact observed time and time again in experiments.

Massless particles such as photons (light particles) travel at the speed of light. Therefore they do not experience the passage of time, and do not age or deteriorate. This is why they are able to travel 14 billion light years and reach the lenses of our telescopes from the distant edges of the Universe. Every time you look up at the stars, you are looking into the past. The light from those stars left them hundreds of light years ago, and is just now reaching your eyes. For all we know, many of the objects in distant space could have blown up hundreds, thousands, millions, even billions of years ago, and we wouldn't know it yet because the light from that period of time is still enroute to our telescopes.

At any rate, it's not so hard for me to believe that something could have always existed given the fact that time does not exist for certain things here in our own Universe. Outside of our Universe, who knows what laws of physics apply and if time exists at all.

[boxboy28]

At any rate, it's not so hard for me to believe that something could have always existed given the fact that time does not exist for certain things here in our own Universe.- Grimm

if time does not exsist then why for certian things then they would have ALLWAYS EXSISTED !
Time is not a measure of existance! it is a human concept to describe a life span created by humans.

Photons - time does not exsist for - but they have always been there correct?

[GrimCO]

Hey there again boxboy...

I love this kind of stuff! LOL

Thinking of these kinds of things is good for you. They even say excercising the brain by reading or contemplating things generates new neural pathways and increases the capacity of the brain. We're both getting smarter man! LOL

But seriously, things like photons DO have a beginning, because they were born in stars at a definite point in "time". However, they have no end, and therefore exist infinitely.

My point was that if I can accept the fact that something has no end, I can also accept the possiblity that something had no beginning.

Time is not just something humans use to measure lifespans. Time is a definite physical occurance. But I understand the point you are trying make, and it's a very valid one.

We humans measure a day (24 hours) as the time it takes it the earth to complete one rotation. A planet such as Mercury that rotates much faster has a much shorter day, and therefore a much shorter year. On Mercury, we'd live to be hundreds of years old in "Mercury Time". But in reality, we'd be the same age, we'd just measure it different.

This is not what time actually is. All time actually means is that something had a definite beginning. The units we use to measure how long ago is where people's misconception of time occurs. It's not the measurement of time that gives it it's definition. I can make a clock, mechanical or digital, and make that clock run at any speed I chose. If I get in a rocket ship capable of going the speed of light, that clock will slow down as I approach the speed of light, and stop when I reach it. I will not age, I will go on living forever. This is of course impossible because my body has mass and could never reach the speed of light. It's just an example that something IS passing, and we call it time. It is a physical thing we experience, no matter what rate we choose to say it passes at.

That being said, I have no trouble believing that outside of our Universe, it is possible that time doesn't exist and never has. It's just a law of physics we're stuck with here because of the way our Universe unfolded during it's birth.

Oh, I almost forgot. They can tell the Universe is expanding because when they measure the spectrum of light of distant galaxies, the spectrum is shifted to the lower or red end. If an object is approaching, it's spectrum shifts toward the high or blue end. If it's stationary, it's light spectrum doesn't shift at all.

Sorry my responses are so long, but it takes a lot of words to try to explain thoughts on things like this...

[boxboy28]

lol i like em Grim it give me stuff to ponder on too so yes we are getting smarter.

But for the light spectrum thing..... isnt it possisble that the light/photons are  skewed/bent/warped as it travel thru space.....say near a black hole or a large gravitational feild?

[midnight Target]

Watched a show recently about the quest to determine the mass of the stuff in the universe. This is critical if you want to determine whether its gonna keep expanding, or if it goes through a never ending series of expansions and contractions.

If enough stuff is found... then our future is pretty bleak. Eventually the sky will grow brighter than day with millions of stars. Life will be snuffed out by the heat not long before the Earth itself becomes a cinder.

If not enough stuff is found.... our future is pretty bleak. The sky will grow progressively darker until no stars are visible at all. We will be more alone than you can imagine before our sun burns out and all is blackness.


Have a nice day.

[GrimCO]

Now THAT sir is a very good question. Even photons have to follow the curvature of space caused by massive objects such as black holes...

In fact there are objects known as "Einstein Crosses" that exhibit what's called gravitational lensing. They appear to us as multiple galaxies surrounding another galaxy. In reality, it's just a single galaxy behind another galaxy that has a supermassive black hole at it's center. The photons of the galaxy behind the one with the supermassive black hole follow the curvature of space around the black hole in all directions and project their photons in multiple areas giving the illusion of multiple galaxies surrounding another...

However, they are able to determine that the multiple images are in fact the same galaxy due to their identical light spectrum. These objects are very rare, but several are documented. I'll post you an image of one below.

At any rate, every galaxy we observe shows a "redshift" which indicates it is moving away from us. Since all galaxies in all directions show a redshift, it is proof that the universe is expanding in all directions as each galaxy is moving away from each other galaxy.

Anyway, here's a picture of one "Einstein Cross".

[GrimCO]

Hey MT,

Either way we're doomed in about 5 billion years...  The sun is halfway through it's lifetime of about 10 billion years. In another 5 billion years, the sun will burn up the last of it's Hydrogen, will expand past the orbit of Mars, and Earth will be inside of it burned to a crisp...

The expanding or contracting Universe won't matter to us anyway, as the Earth will be destroyed long before the Universe expands into coldness or contracts into the inferno of hell.

Perhaps in 5 billion years we'll have enough technology to vacate the Earth and populate another suitable planet... Then each of these theories will have an impact.

Either way, I guess I won't be here to worry about it.

Sorry GSholz, you posted the same time I did, and said about the same thing... sorry...LOL

[AKS\/\/ulfe]

...or we will get sucked into the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.

Anyway you look at it - we're skarewd.
-SW

[boxboy28]

so if every galaxy is moving away from us or a supposed center or start point what is forcing them to move?

Have they measured galaxies near each other to see if they are separating?

is there a rate at which these separtions are occuring?

so if  every galaxy they look at is showing toward the red part of the spectrum (they are moving away) is the Earth the center of the universe? (lol i had to)

I tend to think there might be something else at play here (using my ill rational mind)

why is there not a galaxy behind us passibley closing in on us from the start point or why are we got getting closer to a galaxy that is in front of us?

lol i feel like a 2yr old asking daddy WHy's all day long

[GrimCO]

Boxboy,

Imagine a big rubber sheet with galaxies painted on it... Stretch the sheet from all four corners, and you'll see every galaxy painted on it moving away from the next. There is no center, they're just all moving away from eachother.

That is what's happening...

[midnight Target]

couple of party poopers is what you guys are.

[AKS\/\/ulfe]

Originally posted by GScholz
Well Boxboy, Andromeda and the Milkey Way is on a collision course AFAIK. They say opposites attreact eachother, I wonder which is female...

Milky Way... Earth is gonna be f*cked.
-SW

[Wlfgng]

eyup..
big-ass black hole in the center of our galaxies just wanting to swallow up our little sun (and it's tiny planets)...

or will it be the galaxy collision with all the gravity wells associated with...

or maybe our own stupid selves that destroy our planet before we even begin to worry about crap like that

or possibly the FDB's having eaten up all remaing food stores coming after 'us' next...

[GrimCO]

Originally posted by GScholz
Well Boxboy, Andromeda and the Milkey Way is on a collision course AFAIK. They say opposites attreact eachother, I wonder which is female...

Yeah, let me clarify a little bit... Galaxies are in clusters just like stars within a galaxy...  Each cluster is moving away from the next... Some galaxies within the cluster interact and pass through eachother, but the clusters of galaxies are moving away from other clusters just like the rubber sheet example I illustrated earlier...

Even if we impacted the Andromeda Galaxy, there is little chance we'd be dead or burned up. There are many Galaxies within a local cluster that have collided. But the stars are so far apart, they rarely interact. They just sort of float through eachother and distort the shape of the two galaxies as a whole. The vast majority of individual stars in each galaxy are unaffected by the stars of the other galaxy. The distances are just too great...

Strange, but true...  Here's a great link for colliding galaxies...
 Colliding Galaxies